Making monsoon meteorology: Malaysia and global science in the winter MONEX, 1978-9

The Winter Monsoon Experiment (WMONEX) of 1978-9 was part of the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP). Described as the first international atmospheric-oceanic project for the Eastern Hemisphere, WMONEX employed eighty scientists from Malaysia, the U.S., the U.S.S.R., China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Australia. The GARP was one of the largest international collaborative scientific ventures since the International Geophysical Year and the WMONEX component was the first to dedicatedly study the regional and global climatology of the winter monsoon over terrestrial and oceanic Southeast and East Asia and Australia. This article offers a fresh perspective on the history of international collaboration by looking at the role of the Malaysian Meteorological Service in hosting a key component of the GARP, a collaboration more often than not viewed from US or European perspectives. By focussing on the physical location of meetings, the composition and contribution of research staff, its value to regional scientific community as well as its potential contribution to a developing nation economy, this article repositions the WMONEX as a critical part of Malaysian nation building and a lens into a transitioning colonial society, as UK influence in Southeast Asia waned in the face of US geopolitical ascendancy.